Manual of Environmental Management

Adrian Belcham

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317699545
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Science
• Index: Biological Sciences

Manual of Environmental Management is a practical guide for those involved in the control and reduction of environmental impacts in organisations. This comprehensive and practical guide takes you through the main environmental challenges organisations face and the improvement strategies used to manage them.

Chapter by chapter, Manual of Environmental Management discusses the fundamental issues and principles surrounding environmental policy, law and management and provides crucial information on how to respond and implement environmental programmes.

This book is the perfect reference tool for the environmental professional and an invaluable study text for those preparing for professional examinations such as the NEBOSH Environmental Diploma and IEMA Associate Membership Exam.

Chapter 1 Understanding environmental and sustainability principles

DOI: 10.4324/9781315779461-1

Chapter summary

This chapter begins by exploring key definitions and concepts from the natural sciences that relate to environmental management. The activity– aspect–impact model is introduced as a standard way to relate to the interactions between an organisation and the wider environment.

An overview is then provided of key environmental problems considered at a variety of levels and scales, from global to local, and covering both pollution and resource consumption issues. This section may be considered as both a ‘state of the environment’ overview and as a summary of impact categories that an organisation may be linked to, directly or indirectly, as a result of its activities.

Finally, we explore the concept of sustainability and highlight its place both in terms of the international agreements that gave rise to it and in relation to the longer- term thinking that is emerging at the forefront of government policy and business planning.

• ENVIRONMENTAL PROCESSES AND PRINCIPLES
  • What do we mean by the term ‘environment’?
    • Ways of describing the environment
    • Categories of environmental impacts
    • The process of pollution: the source-pathway-receptor model
    • Resource depletion
  • Natural cycles and systems
    • The importance of linkages
    • The hydrological cycle
    • The food chain/energy cycle
    • The carbon cycle
    • The nitrogen cycle
    • The phosphorus cycle
  • Activities, aspects and impacts
    • Definitions and descriptions
    • An aspects checklist
    • Environmental receptor groups
• AN OVERVIEW OF KEY ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS
  • Air quality
    • Key atmospheric pollutants
    • Climate change
    • Ozone depletion
    • Acid rain
    • Photochemical smog
  • Water quality and availability
    • Pollutant categories
    • Groundwater pollution
    • Freshwater availability
  • Management of natural resources
    • Population growth
    • Energy
    • Land contamination
    • Availability of productive land
    • Biodiversity and ecological stability
    • Chemicals exposure
    • Waste
  • Human community issues
    • Nuisance
    • Infrastructure/amenity impacts
    • Cultural heritage impacts
• THE PLACE OF HUMAN BEINGS IN THE ‘ENVIRONMENT’
  • Sustainability and sustainable development
  • Ecosystem products and services
  • The international commitment to sustainable development
    • The Earth Summit, 1992
    • The Earth Summit II, 1997
    • Rio+10, 2002
    • Rio+20, 2012
  • Sustainable development: an economic, social and environmental goal
    • Relative sustainability
    • Absolute sustainability
• FURTHER RESOURCES

I ENVIRONMENTAL PROCESSES AND PRINCIPLES

Environmental issues are intrinsically important to everyone. Even talking about ‘the environment’ as if it were something separate from us makes no sense, in fact. With every breath, movement, meal and action, we interact with other elements of what we refer to as the environment. Whether considering each of us as individuals, business organisations, industries or public bodies, we are all reliant upon the environment as the basis of our being. In the sixth century BCE, the classic Chinese philosophical text, the Tao Te Ching, captured this truth in a typically eloquent manner that can only be more relevant today than it was then:

Many people with influence and wealth treat the earth as something to be owned.

To be used and abused to suit their own ends.

But the earth is a living being, a great spiritual source.

To disregard this source is to call forth catastrophe, since all creatures great and small are an inherent and interdependent part of this very being.

(Inspired by Verse 29, We are the World, trans. R. A. Dale, 2002)

1.1 What do we mean by the term ‘environment’?

As indicated above, in its broadest sense the environment is: ‘Everything, including human beings – the whole of the planet acting as a linked and interdependent whole.’ That can be a challenging definition for many people, so in an attempt to be specific, from a business management perspective, the International Standards Organisation (ISO) defines the environment as: ‘Surroundings in which an organisation operates including air, water, land, natural resources, flora, fauna, humans and their inter-relationships.’

However we choose to define it, pressures on the ‘environment’ are increasing because of continuing social developments, for example, the enhanced production levels of food and material things as a consequence of the great increase in the world population, which passed the 7 billion mark in 2011. The world population has more than doubled since the 1950s when it was only approximately 2.6 billion, and if current trends continue, it is expected to exceed 9 billion by 2050 (Population Reference Bureau, 2013). The combination of population growth, technological development and the higher human aspirations for material wealth, raises the pressure on the Earth's ecosystems, with increasing demands for resources and increasing production of materials to be disposed of as waste.

1.1.1 Ways of describing the environment

The environment is often described in terms of three separate but intimately linked component parts as shown in Figure 1.1. The interaction between these three component parts comprises the local ‘environment’ wherever we look. An impact on one of the three elements will normally have ‘knock-on’ consequences or ‘secondary impacts’ in one or more of the other elements. For example, the discharge of effluent into a river has an impact on the chemical qualities of the water (physical environment), which, if significant, may lead to a fish kill (biological environment) which may mean local angling groups lose their recreational resource (human environment).

In addition, the natural world is described in terms of ecosystems or habitats. The habitat of any particular species is the combination of physical and biological conditions in which it exists. Without such conditions the species cannot exist – hence we read about the threat of extinction to animals such as tigers arising, not only from direct pressures such as poaching, but also through ‘loss of available habitat’.

Figure 1.1 Components of the environment

Ecosystems comprise communities of interdependent organisms and the physical environment that they inhabit. Although cyclical change is frequently observed in natural ecosystems, human interference (through pollution and/or resource depletion) threatens their sustainability in many parts of the world. Examples of ecosystem types include woodlands, lakes, rivers, moorland, coral reefs, estuaries, etc.

Finally, the term biosphere is sometimes used to describe the ‘zone of terrestrial life’. The term includes the Earth's land and water surfaces, plus the lowest part of the atmosphere and the upper part of the soil and water layers and all living things within these zones. The Gaia Theory, proposed by scientist James Lovelock in the 1970s, which is reminiscent of the passage from the Tao Te Ching quoted earlier, compares the whole of the biosphere to a single living organism. It argues that each component of the biosphere, whether considered at a local or global scale, contributes to and depends upon, the existence and stability of the rest of the system.

1.1.2 Categories of environmental impacts

At the simplest level, environmental impacts fall into two broad categories:

• ► pollution;
• ► resource depletion.

Each may be defined as follows:

• ► Pollution – the introduction by man of substances or energy into the environment that are liable to cause hazards to human health, harm to ecological systems, damage to structures or amenity, or interference with legitimate uses of the environment.
• ► Resource depletion – the consumption of natural resources that are either finite in their existence (non-renewable resources) or are managed in such a way as to permanently deplete potentially renewable biological or physical resources. Examples of non-renewable resources include fossil fuels and mineral ores. Examples of resources which may be indefinitely renewed if managed/consumed appropriately include fish stocks and timber.

It should be noted that environmental impacts may be considered positive or negative and that while we often tend to focus on the negative impacts, actions may be taken which result in positive consequences in the human, biological or physical environment.

1.1.3 The process of pollution: the source-pathway-receptor model

When considering the effects of pollution, it is useful to classify the process of pollution as shown in Figure 1.2. Without the presence of all three elements of the source-pathway-receptor model, pollution cannot occur. Traditionally pollution control techniques have focused on interrupting the pathway between source and receptor, e.g. acoustic cladding around noisy plant. More recently there has been an increase in interest in addressing the sources of pollution as being a more permanent and effective form of control, e.g. the replacement of solvent-based inks by water-based inks, thereby eliminating completely the source of air pollution.

The effects of pollutants on the receptors can be further classified as acute or chronic. These are characterised as shown in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 Acute and chronic pollution impacts

Acute pollution impacts	Chronic pollution impacts
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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Understanding environmental and sustainability principles
• 2 Environmental policy
• 3 Environmental law
• 4 Understanding environmental management and sustainable development in a business context
• 5 Collecting, analysing and reporting on environmental information and data
• 6 Environmental management and assessment tools
• 7 Analysing problems and opportunities to deliver sustainable solutions
• 8 Developing and implementing programmes to deliver environmental performance improvement
• 9 Communicating effectively with internal and external stakeholders
• 10 Influencing behaviour and implementing change to improve sustainability
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index